


Love Me Not

by GatesKeeper



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Kiss, Homophobia, M/M, POV Castiel (Supernatural), Past Daphne Allen/Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:35:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22943404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GatesKeeper/pseuds/GatesKeeper
Summary: I would recognize that voice anywhere.Then again, angels have eidetic memories, so that could be said of any voice I’d ever heard. Only this one I had been married to for seven months.orCastiel runs into Daphne at the grocery store.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 9
Kudos: 343





	Love Me Not

I would know that voice anywhere.

Then again, angels have eidetic memories, so that could be said of any voice I’d ever heard. Only this one I had been married to for seven months.

“Dean,” I hiss into the next aisle at the grocery store.

“You finally done reading all the labels on the organic honey, man? Seems like a lot of fuss for something that just—dissolves into your vessel or whatever anyway.”

A few second later, he rounds the corner and I drop both little plastic bears I had been considering into the basket. “I’ll meet you outside….” I inform him and then, as an afterthought, “Don’t forget Sam’s kale.”

“Woah, woah,” Dean holds up his hands to me, so that they hover a foot away from my chest. According to the rules he taught me so long ago, this is an invasion of personal space, but he is the one who did it, so I presume that it is acceptable. “What’s going on? You see a bat signal or something?”

I search Metatron’s pop culture references for clues. “I—”

 _“Emmanuel…?_ ”

Dean looks over my shoulder and I can tell the moment he recognizes her from the way his face twitches. “Are you _laughing_ right now?” I growl under my breath and while he does sober down a little under my glare, when his gaze switches to Daphne again, the smile is back.

“I’m sorry…,” he chortles. “It’s just…everyone has had to deal with awkward run-ins with their exes in their lives. I just…never thought you’d have to.”

“Emmanuel…?” her voice has stepped closer and, reluctantly, I turn around to face her. There’s sadness in her blue eyes that I put there and a not-unfamiliar feeling of guilt spreads through me, coloring everything it touches, like dye making its way through water.

“Hello,” I start—only to find my arms suddenly full with her slight, trembling weight.

“I always had faith you’d return to me,” she breathes against my neck and then her lips are on mine and they’re…warm and soft….Not ashy like kissing Meg…not demanding like it was with April…and also not quite the chaste kisses I remember sharing with her before. Dean is coughing behind us, but since I don’t need to breathe, I wait for her to finish getting whatever comfort she can from me.

“How long have you been back?” she asks, finally pulling away.

“Back?”

“I figured you must have been taken by Heaven for some great work after you left so suddenly.”

“I…have been to Heaven since our last encounter, yes. I have also been to Hell and Purgatory.”

Dean’s snort competes with her gasp, through which I gather I have overshared.

“Well,” she fusses, smoothing out the collar of my shirt. “You’ll have to tell me all about it once we get you home.”

I tilt my head in confusion. “My home is with the Winchesters. We typically don’t invite people to visit.”

Dean coughs again.

“We should pick up some lozenges for your throat,” I tell him. We wouldn’t need to if he just let me heal him when he gets sick, but when I offer, he only grumbles that I’ll ruin his immune system and I should save my grace for something important. Which is ridiculous for multiple reasons, not the least of which is he has asked me to use my grace to reheat coffee on a stakeout before.

My comment seems to have fully drawn Dean into this conversation and Daphne’s eyes widen with recognition, “You.”

“Me,” he admits with a tiny wave.

She turns back to me, fists tight with accusation. “You didn’t go to Heaven….You…You ran away to live with _him._ Don’t you know what kinds of sins you’re committing? What God thinks of…relationships like yours?”

Dean snorts. “God has many issues with us, lady. Our living arrangements ain’t one of ‘em,” he says and then, to my utter surprise, he grabs my hand. “Isn’t that right, angel?”

 _She thinks we’re gay for each other. Just go with it. Otherwise, she’ll do something crazy like stalk us back to the bunker_ , Dean prays.

A deception makes much more sense than that Dean just _wanted_ to run his thumb electrically along the back of my hand, but I still can’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment.

“Yes…What he said,” I assert, squeezing his fingers, instinctively.

“Emmanuel…How could you let this… _stranger_ ruin everything we had?” The single tear spilling down her cheek makes me very uncomfortable.

“My name is not Emmanuel. It’s Castiel…. I got my memories back and those included the life I had before I met you—a life _with_ Dean. I do apologize for the distress I’ve caused you—and for vanishing so suddenly. I was…unwell after I remembered who I was, and then it seemed too late to give you an explanation—but that’s no excuse. I have sincerely hoped that you were happy…perhaps even happi _er_ in my absence.”

“I loved you,” she argues, moving toward me again, but this time I step backward, dragging Dean with me.

“The idea of me maybe. That’s not the same thing.”

I surprise myself by elaborating. “You saw me as something new and innocent. But I’ve lived longer than you can imagine. I _have_ sinned. Not the way you think I have—God _is_ truly indifferent to sexual orientation. But I have betrayed my family and my friends—often with good intentions but with devastating results—and I don’t think you could accept that. When you love someone, you love the whole person—both the bad and the good. All the ways they are imperfect are why they are perfect for you. You’ll find your partner, Daphne, someday. If not in this life, then the next one.”

She’s still looking at me—waiting? Hoping? I don’t know how to interpret the expression. But then Dean is there, tugging me by the hand. “Come on. Think it’s time to go, angel,” he says, loud enough for her to hear.

“Yes, uh…” ‘Human’ is not an actual term of endearment. “Honey Bunch.”

We stand in the checkout line—without kale, but I figure Sam will forgive us under the circumstances. I can still feel Daphne’s eyes on me, but more importantly, I can still feel Dean’s hand in mine. Did he forget to let go or is he just committed to keeping up the act while we are in the store?

An idea occurs to me that is almost irresistible. I remind myself that Dean is trying to help me out and that this would be an awful way of repaying his kindness. But on the other hand, I remember him telling me, _“Dude, you full-on rebelled against heaven. Iniquity is one of the perks.”_

He tastes his own bottom lip, unconsciously, and I think that, just _once_ in my entire eternal existence, I want to taste it, too.

Dean’s body stiffens when I kiss him, and the rejection is like burnt coffee—everything that is wonderful about the kiss is drowned out by what’s wrong with it—and I pull away in utter shame.

“Apologies,” I say—and oh, how I wish I didn’t always have so many things to apologize to Dean for. Without another word, I leave him and the store, walking in no particular direction but _away_.

/////

The Impala finds me a half an hour later, which isn’t much of a surprise, but does make me wish violently that I had my wings back. Dean’s head pops out of the driver’s side window, “Dude! What was that?”

“A kiss,” I say, wondering if he’ll hear the sarcasm.

“Yeah, I got that part. Why’d you do it?”

I think of the lie I prepared before closing the inches between us—that I was playing the role that he’d assigned me. There was no reason to take it that far, of course, but giving him a guileless look and an “I don’t understand you humans” would probably get me out of it without too many consequences.

But putting the blame in any way on him seems like an even worse offense than kissing him in the first place. “Because I wanted to, Dean,” I say, in a low voice. “I have for a while.”

“Please just…go away,” I beg after another minute of silence with me walking and him following in Baby at a snail’s pace.

Dean sighs and I think that he is accepting defeat for now, that he will tell me he’ll see me back at the bunker. Instead, he mutters. “It wasn’t as awful as I thought it would be.”

_“What?”_

“You know, when I pictured you doing something like that, I always thought I’d hate it.”

“You—what—you— _what?!_ ” Too many questions want to come out all at once. What wins is, “You’ve thought about me kissing you before?”

“Not a lot. There’s just always been a weird…you know, _thing,_ with us. And I wondered sometimes if you might….”

“Be in love with you?”

“I wasn’t going to put it like _that,_ ” Dean insists, rubbing his hand through his hair.

“Why not?”

The tips of his ears turn red.

We make it another quarter mile down the road before he responds. “If I was considering giving it another try—and I do end up hating it—is that going to completely screw up our friendship? ‘Cause I’m not risking that.”

“You…” My eyes widen. “With me…again?”

“You know, you’re doing a lot of sputtering, Mr. I-don’t-get-words wrong.”

If there is anyone who could kill me without an angel blade, it’s this man.

“I’m your _friend,_ Dean,” I insist, almost angrily. “I’ll _always_ be your friend—happy to be at your side in whatever capacity you’ll have me. It seems more likely that you would be the one to impose distance between us should you find it—or the blow to your self-identified sexual orientation—too unpleasant.”

In the distance, a bird flies out of a crop of corn to shriek against the sky.

“Right,” Dean huffs.

And then, in another in a long string of surprises this afternoon, he drives the car in front of me, pulls over onto the grassy strip beside the road, and parks.

“Dean…?” I breathe, as he moves towards me with purpose, his leather-and-gun-powder smell reaching me before he does. And then suddenly, there is one hand tugging at the short hairs at the base of my scalp and one hand pressed against the small of my back, dragging me closer—his mouth swallowing my gasp.

I’m used to being acutely aware of this body—what temperature it is, how fast its heart is beating, choosing every second when to breathe—but this is awareness on a whole new level. Awareness of the tingles in my skin everywhere his fingers brush me, awareness of the pain-pleasure of his teeth nipping at my bottom lip, and the almost-cruel wet slide of his tongue after. I’m aware of my grace, glowing from inside me to match the brightness of the soul it loves—and the arousal in my stomach that’s moving lower….

Dean retreats with a quiet moan that a human might not have been able to hear, his forehead pressed to mine, but his eyes closed.

I wait. I’ll stay here forever just like this if I have to.

“OK then,” he says, popping his eyes open and giving me another, much more chaste kiss. “Get in the car…the groceries are melting.” Then he turns back to the Impala.

I stand there, completely and utterly stunned until he calls my name again and a smile replaces my look of confusion. If Dean wants me to follow his lead, it wouldn’t be the first time.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been on a bit of a spree writing about Dean's and Castiel's encounters with their exes, so if you are a fan of those kinds of fics, you might like:
> 
> Dean's reunion with Lisa: [Hindsight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22745620)  
> Dean's reunion with Cassie: [A Thing of the Past](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22929460)
> 
> Keep in mind, none of these are directly related to one another.
> 
> I might also do some more one-shots in a similar vein--dealing with Outsider perspectives, not necessarily all exes--so maybe user subscribe if you're interested? 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading!


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